It's a Carnival: Raising your child bilingually

And here it is, can I have a fanfare please, tatata taaaa! the first carnival on raising multilingual children. When I stumbled across my first hurdles in raising my daughter bilingually, all the books I'd bought were of little use. So, in good old blogger fashion, I tried to find blogs on the topic to get some answers to the questions that I had. It wasn't as easy to find blogs about raising bilingual children, and there is no significant online community that brings them together. Up came the idea of a bilingualism carnival in the hope that this may kickstart some discussion on the topic, some exchange of experiences and ideas, and provide a platform for parents to find answers, share tips and signpost to resources.

The plan is that there will be a regular carnival on the topic which will support parents going through the trials and tribulations of keeping more than one language and culture alive in their households, while providing a resource of ideas and experiences for those who are or plan to bring up their children with more than one language.

The great thing about bilingual parenting is that often, the language combination doesn't matter so much because the experiences are quite similar whatever the language pair. To be fair, the blogs I've come across have given me more ideas and support than any of the books on bilingualism I bought (and believe me, I bought quite a few).

If you're interested in hosting one of the next carnivals, please go to the bilingual carnival page over at Bilingual for Fun, where you can find the schedule and register your interest.
The next carnival on raising children bilingually will be over at Blogging on Bilingualism, on 30th September 2009. Please send your contributions to whim2 @ comcast.net leaving out the spaces in the address. Above all, huge thanks, danke, gracias, spaciva, grazie, merci, go raibh maith agat, dank u well to everyone who contributed to this first raising bilingual children carnival!

Bilingual children: how to start seems to be just the right place to begin this carnival. Barbara at Barbaraland raises her children with Italian and English and dispels the myth that raising bilingual children will confuse them or may be bad for their language development.

Not so very sure about this is Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things in her hilarious post On swinging both ways, however, I always thought the 400m hurdles were the most exciting part of any athletic championship, so here's to bilingual hurdlers!

Fraught Mummy at Brits in Bosnia ponders in her post Learning Languages the way her family's move to Bosnia has affected their children's ability to speak English and how they may lay the foundations for future trouble, with their children being able to speak a language they themselves aren't fluent in.

If your children are approaching school age, Letizia at Bilingual for Fun offers a comprehensive guide on chosing the right schooling for your bilingual child.

Jan at Babelkid (what an aptly named blog - in his household the children speak French, Arabic and German) has his kids telling him off for using an English word at the breakfast table in a very clever turn of usual events, when he is told that English is not spoken here.

Similarly, Ju at Double Trouble is told off by her daughter for speaking Portuguese at the school in her post Ingles/Portugues (apologies for lack of Portuguese characters, I haven't figured out how to use special language characters in blogger).

Kathryn at Life in Italy writes about her experience of raising two children bilingually in Italy, with English as the "other" language having found out that text book approaches are just that but real life is a different story altogether.

Along similar lines, the Perfectly Happy Mum Peggy will make you laugh out loud in How the hell am I going to teach these kids French where she tells us about her attempts to establish the one parent one language approach in her house. Life's never that straight forward and there are always a number of reasons not to be consistent, I say nodding my head in "been there, know what you mean" agreement at every paragraph.

Emily at Maternal Tales From the South Coast too struggles as she explains in her experience of raising her children French/English in England. It's not as easy as she thought, but not all hope is lost as she will tell you in her post Bilingual Children erm not quite.

And to add to that, I'm including my own first post on the topic of bilingualism, one child, two languages where I explain why raising Cubling bilingual is so important to me and why at the same time in spite of my determination, well, it could be going better.

You can find out all about a bilingual kindergarten on Blogging on Bilingualism where Eve interviews a local German woman who runs a bilingual kindergarten. A fascinating idea, and one that would really help us struggling parents keep up the weaker language (I for my part would be welcoming a German childminder with open arms).

Finally, Smashed Pea at Intrepidly Bilingual looks back on her experience of raising her children bilingually with hindsight in If only I had known..., a great resource for anyone starting out on the bilingual kiddo route or parents at a head scratching phase who are looking for some encouragement and ideas on how to keep going.

That's it for now, hope to see you all at the next carnival on Blogging on Bilingualism!

of angel babies, blogging and freebies

My niece is an angel baby. I'm writing this as she's lying in front of me, staring into this new world. She sleeps, feeds, looks about a bit, sleeps. For a mum of a spirited baby (that means babies who object to about everything except being carried or being attached to a nipple, who nap little and cry a lot, who scorn the 400 quid pram and make you wish you had invested in slings instead), this is truly amazing, I can't believe there are babies like her. Of course the unexpected worries one, while we are also thankful that she is such an angel baby and lets us spend lots of times with the toddlers too.

It's a strange combination of confidence and amazement. Yes, I can still remember what to do with a newborn and feel confident enough, but she is different, reminding me that really comparisons are just plain rubbish. Cubling almost didn't posset. Whereas currently, we are all running about stinking of resurgitated milk. Like, I've never seen milk come out of the nose!!! In Cubling's case, I hardly ever saw any milk at all (which was a different worry altogether). I now understand why some parents go through a lot of muslins and babygrows (Cubling had her babygrow on for days on end).

It also reminds me acutely of why I got so into blogging when pregnant and after giving birth. In the few and precious minutes that you have when with a newborn (even if they are more of them with this particular newborn), blogging is great - you spend as little or as much time as you like/can and that's that. No bad feelings for not having managed to drink your cup of tea before it got cold yet again. No cursing that the heap of washing keeps increasing and you don't even make it to the drying rack. All you need is a laptop on standby and your get your 5 minutes of me time.

Of course, it was different 2 1/2 years ago. I could never have just put Cubling down on blankets on the ground in front of me. She would also never have napped for the greater part of the day. Or napped in general for more than 30 minutes at a time. Yet I got very proficient at typing away on my laptop while breastfeeding (believe it or not) and getting my me time during those frequent and long feeds.

I also made an interesting discovery last night, prompted by my inability to write emails from my webmail because it's programmed in a way that it won't work for Firefox, boo. So I had to use my gmail account which is there but never used. Previously, I'd wondered about all these offers and freebies that mummy bloggers apparently get which really haven't ever made their way to me unless it was me who made contact through British Mummy Bloggers. I'd put it down to my blog not being popular enough, and that was fine really (I wouldn't have said no to a box of legos though!). Well, you may guess, my inbox had a few offers. One for vitamin supplements for children over 3. How suitable. Another one something to do with school. How suitable again. Hello advertisers, check the age of my wean please. Others are offers that are so beyond my life at the moment that they made me chuckle. A pamper day, yeah right. When exactly would I want to do that? I sported a greying long head of hair for inability to make it to the hairdressers for a good few months. Then there's a free lunch with bloggers near me. In theory this lunch idea is quite attractive though considering I have yet to actually meet a fellow blogger (apart from friends who also happen to blog that is). So if you're a blogger and are around Glasgow or Clackmannanshire and fancy a free pizza lunch and meeting me, let me know in the comment box. I'll be likely to be with child(ren) though as way of warning ;)

Oops, and there she's asleep again. Not a peep. Not a whimper. This is surreal.

(Oh and you've still got a chance to send me your contribution to the first carnival on raising bilingual children - links to your post should reach me (blog @ cartside.co.uk) by 30th August. Ah go on, I'm trying to get 10 posts, and currently 3 short. It'll be fun, I promise!)

PS photo is entirely unrelated to blogpost. I just wanted to share it cause I like it - the moment before the balloon went pop in Culross a few weeks ago.

Young People, Youth Work and Social Networking

Now how about that: There's little me, addicted to all things internet, and social networking. Still finding my feet around stuff like social bookmarking which I don't quite get. A definite convert to Twitter although I'm sure I'm not using it to it's full potential yet. And then work sends me to a conference on social networking in the youth work context. Bliss! Official endorsement of my geeky side.

If we forget about the rather rubbish start to the day (early childminder drop off, two trains and a 20 min walk and then having to walk around a rugby stadium twice in the pouring rain to find the flipping entrance, because the conference organisers had not managed to include information on which stand/gate to use, only to arrive late and have missed the chance to sign up to the workshop that I was most interested in. Rant over.), it was all good. I have a list of social networking sites that I want to try out: Friendfeed where you can integrate all your facebooks/bebo's of the world. Ning, ning and ning again (that's for my work context mind you). The massive increase of video blogging and microblogging this very year 2009. Statistics which boggle the mind.

Did you know that Bebo is particularly popular amongst young people in Scotland? It's the no. 1 social networking site in the 16-24 age bracket.
Then I found out how social networking on the go, i.e. with your iphone or equivalent is the taste of things to come. How particularly young people tend to use their mobiles for social networking. How MSM and Instant Messaging, and chat rooms, are still very popular among the young. How scarily easy it is to find out a lot of info on young people through their social networking profiles and what we need to do to protect them from those risks.

Above all, there was lots of food for thought. Youth workers and organisations working with young people are scared of social networking. And yes, there are risks. However, you don't avoid them by putting on blinkers and signalling three crosses. You can't make social networking sites go away, they are THE most used parts of the internet. And they do rock, to be fair. So in my view it's all about knowing the medium and working with young people to make them aware of risks and enable them to protect themselves. They're not daft, they can use that stuff better than middle aged me, so they can learn how to do it safely.

Another biggie for me was the fact how much it is assumed that because social networking is so prevalent, that everyone is using it. Well people, they're not. The young people I meet through my work often don't have a landline, never mind a broadband connection or an iphone. A phone that costs £30 a month? You must be joking. So social networking is all good and well but does also contribute to another social, digital divide. Another facet of a society tainted by deep running inequalities. You may say, well, they can do it on school or library computers. Hm, nice try, however, you can't access social networking sites from libraries, schools and many other public computers because of the restrictions put on such computers (see previous paragraph on the fear of the social network amongst youth workers/teachers).

There's a massive piece of work where we would like to use lots of social networking tools and we'll have to get our heads around the fact that we won't be able to create online communities amongst young people and their families who live in poverty, simply because they don't have the access to the internet that is needed for this. Of course, in our work we can offer, facilitate and provide such access, but that also means it's on our terms, and not entirely owned by the participants in our programme. Compromise is written all over it.

Not ideal, but at the same time I'm excited about all the stuff that's out there. To link in with my post on child protection and blogging, there was also a draft document on best practice of using social networking in the youth work context which also gave lots of food for thought. Specifically I've learned that young people should not disclose full name, name of their families, the name of their school (or show photos with school uniform), their address and that such disclosure may go through their friends. Add to that to only post photos of yourself that you would show your mum and you're on the right track.

I did go away with a strong urge to own an iphone. Ideal for feeding the habit. Oh dear, how far have I fallen.

Some interesting links on the topic:
http://blogs.nya.org.uk/ywsn/
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3982-10-superb-social-media-presentations
http://ukyouthonline.ning.com/
And if I figure out SU and digg, maybe I even stand a chance of bookmarking it online.

Oh looky, a mossy jacket!

When I found out I was pregnant, I leaped right into this project. Understandably it was put on hold as my pregnancy ended in week 11, and I've done a lot of thinking what to do with this piece of knitting. It's not that I want rid of it because it reminds me or anything like that, no, it's just a lovely knit and it should be worn rather than be stacked away in my knitting basket. Anyway, I finished it after I'd finished knitting the massive project of a blanket for my little niece and really there was not much left doing.

I loved knitting it. It's done on biggish needles, with Rowan's Little Big Wool. I love all about it, the colour combination (which I get wrong often), the way it's knit in one piece and thus saves me hours of sewing up and finishing. The way the seems materialise as if by magic just by following the pattern and increasing stitches at the right points. They way the pattern makes no sense when you read it and it then oh so falls into place by just doing it. That it was a quick knit with lovely yarn. Many thanks to Fawn Pea for providing this amazing pattern for free on her blog, and I'm sure to be using another one of her patterns for another project soon!

So this is for an autumn / winter baby. Size 0-6 months and it's very warm. As my friend J. is currently in labour I wonder if it could fit her baby when it gets colder or if it'll be too small. I'm really knitting something else for her baby but that piece, well, turned out a tad bigger (as in 2-3years rather than 6-12 months size. Oh dear.) Or should it go to the baby of my friend whose due date is just a day before the one I had figured out for little button?

I haven't decided that but as you can see, there's plenty of babies about so it shouldn't be a problem. And I hope to knit a second one sometime in the future.

blogging, photos and child protection

There was a bit of a discussion in the Cartside home about my posting of my niece's photo. And I thought it was a useful one, maybe one that every blogger should have.

As you may have noticed, I don't tend to post images that show Cubling's face and I also don't use her real name. Working for a children's charity which has child protection as one of its guiding principles, I'm well acquainted with how to protect identities using the internet for the protection of children. It's simple really:
a) you need parental consent to post a picture of a child. At work, that means written consent. I also always ask the child if they are happy for photos to be used (they are generally old enough to say)
b) If you post a picture of a child, you only identify her/him with first name and city, no other details, or to be super safe, use a fake first name.

So when it comes to Cubling and this blog, I'm more than following the guidelines. Parental consent can be implied, both hubby and I prefer not to show her face. I never use Cubling's real name. However, on Facebook, I post full face pictures and use her first name, making pictures visible to my friends only.

When I posted the photo of my niece, I did not seek parental consent before posting the photo on this blog. This is clearly wrong, so I've taken the photo down and try my best in future not to get carried away. Why did I do it in spite of knowing better? An urge to share with my readers the majority of whom I know, and because after all, she's a 2 day old baby on the photo which doesn't really mean she could be identified. The face is out of focus. The face is not fully shown, I consciously didn't pick the "best" photo. These are excuses of course. I should have sought parental consent first, and I didn't. I have no right to post her photo.

There is a more general issue here though: while it's up to each parent blogger to decide to post photos of their own child(ren) or not. However, there are plenty of photos out there in the blogosphere where children other than the blogger's own are shown. Somehow I doubt that the parents of the other children have given consent.

It's a tricky area, and of course nobody expects a blogger to be an expert on child protection. It's worth considering though so this is why I put this out for discussion. What are your views on posting photos of your child? And do you think it's ok to post a photo where other children are visible? Do you use real names or not?

Introducing:

My little niece I., born on 20th August 2009 at 3.11pm, weighing 8lbs 7oz (same as Cubling!).
She started rooting almost instantly, and has already slept through the night. Clever girl.

She was born by c-section much to the dismay of my sister in law who had so hoped to avoid the lengthy recovery, especially because big brother was so keen to meet his sister so he could run again with his mum. However, when the decision was made that a c-section was necessary, there really wasn't a realistic alternative, it was the safest option and even a natural birth advocate like me had to concede that this was a no brainer. I so felt for my sister in law, acutely remembering how I felt when a c-section was suggested to me (which I just about avoided). She'd tried so hard both times, and still a natural birth was taken from her again.

Personally, I'd been rather worried about the possibility of a section - I'm one to faint when drip needles are set, blood is drawn or when I get a jag at the dentist. And I wanted to be of use, not faint in the theatre. Strangely though, our minds work in mysterious ways and all I was focused on was to calm my sister in law as best as possible in this situation, and to see my beautiful little niece being born. Yes, I looked and even saw her bum coming out (after prompting by the nice anaestethist who encouraged me to look after I showed curiosity when her head was born). She looked so rosy for a newborn, so big, so healthy.

The hospital allowed plenty of skin to skin, so much more than I got when Cubling was born, and the baby only got weighed much later. She stayed in the same room as her mum all the time, again in contrast to my own experience. It was really nice to see, no prodding, no nothing, just plenty of cuddling up to her mummy which she clearly enjoyed.

I got home utterly exhausted at about 9.30pm, not that I did much all day, it must be that witnessing labour and the emotions of the day did take some energy.

As soon as I. was out of theatre, she started to root, latch and feed within an hour after birth, such an amazing thing to see.

As one of the birth partners, I was privileged to spend a lot of time with mum and new baby, and I got rather emotional yesterday as she snoozed in my arm and I realised that I'd seen this beautiful and strong little girl being born, such a special moment to witness, which I shall treasure forever.

tomorrow is the day

Today my niece will be born, one way or another.
It's strange to have such certainty after waiting so long. Because my SIL is attempting a VBAC, she'll be induced 10 days past her due date. It's all very civilised considering the emotional rollercoaster of the last 2 weeks, the last 7 months in fact. Knowing that tomorrow is the day brings some calmness, at least for me.

Me and a mutual friend will be birth partners. I'm extremely honoured by this, excited, slightly anxious and unsure if I'll be any good at it, hoping all will go very smoothly.
Actually, I'm an emotional wreck by now. A post in draft form had to be deleted because it was written at a very low point. Suffice to say that there was a very low point today, and today, hopefully, there will be a very high point.
Focus on them, and keep a stiff upper lip. As if.

We are also hoping that there will be no hospital overnight stay, provided that delivery won't be by c-section. Please cross your fingers for my SIL that this will be the case, or you may even press your thumbs or do anything else that denotes good luck wishes in the culture you come from. She deserves it you see.

Broadcast may be interrupted depending on how little niece likes the outside world (considering she's not too keen to make an entrance by herself, she may have a few complaints).

8 pairs of welcoming hands ready to embrace you into this world. We've been waiting for you and are so looking forward to getting to know you. You'll meet a very clever big brother, a loving mother, a cheeky cousin, wonderful grandparents and doting aunties and uncles.

Ooooh, here it comes! Wheeled invasion of the two-year-old mind

(photo by wobble-san via Flickr)

There has been another invasion in the mind of certain two year olds.

It makes a noise, it is fast, it has a spinning front, eyes, wheels. It goes through fields, splashing hay all around it. Above all, it's apparently super scary. In an exciting, pleasurable way.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the...

Combine Harvester.

If you've ever seen Cars, or have an iphone where you can do stuff like watch films (I don't, not sure how it works, but a certain more techy savvy person hailing from New York does), go to 56 minutes and 14 seconds and THERE IT COMES. Your one and only Combine Harvester! The first tast of a car chase: piercing squeeks of delight, uncontrollable movements of hands, arms, legs and feet, the all body excitement mixed with just about bearable fear, the almost-hiding-behind-the-sofa-if-only-I-didn't-so-want-to-watch-it feeling. Of two two year olds. I would have loved to give you (and your kids) a flavour of it, but for all the merchandising out there, I cannot lay my hands on a video of the scene, even an image of the wondrous Combine Harvester. Shame that.

Cubling of course thinks it's a "come hamster". Bless her.

The iphone was rather popular and I'm proud to announce that Cubling is a rather efficient user of it now.

Unlike me.

And Cubling's first word upon waking this morning? You guessed right, it had to be: "come hamster!"

One fateful day of July

It is July 2006. I'd been in Germany for a week. Not on holiday, nonono, not this time, not even to visit friends and family. Some time ago the decision was made that since we'd be living in Scotland for the foreseeable future, at least we should get married in Germany, to give everyone in Scotland a chance to find out where the bride came from. We also happened to find the perfect place for the perfect wedding's afters, not to be beaten by all the fancy castles, ships, and posh houses at extortionate prices which you can pick from closer to home, err Scotland.

Of course there was an awful lot of last minute panic, what with a wedding dress made by a friend in Germany which was only first tried on a week before the big day (needless to say it needed some alterations), all the last minute stuff that needs to be organised (flowers, decoration, number of guests, menus etc). We were headless chickens, not just to make this day extra special for us, but also to ensure that those who travelled all the way to make our day special would have a fabulous time. There were trips to airports, hotel bookings that went wrong, a programme of activities pre and post big day for those who were around. It was busy, and good. The pleasure of bringing together all of our friends, so many who made the journey, to have this crowd of all the very special people we care for so much all together in one place. Such a privilege, such pride in the fact that we could call these fantastic people our friends.

The day of our wedding was fabulous - a perfect day, sunny, but not too hot or sticky, and all the catering went without a blib. Of course, I was nervous, both before and after, with so many things to organise, I only relaxed towards the end of the actual wedding day and after about three glasses of wine and various other drinks. I'm a worrier, you see. What was more, I got a phone call while in Germany. This was before the wedding day. A job application I'd submitted at the spur of a moment of being disillusioned with annual contracts and lack of colleagues (I worked for a small charity and was the only employee at the time) had brought about an interview. No affordable flight was to be had (and I was happy about that, as I didn't fancy going back to Scotland between wedding and honeymoon) so it was scheduled as a phone interview for the Tuesday after our wedding on Saturday.

My period was late at our wedding, just a few days. I'd been there before. I blamed it on being a nervous wreck, and after all, had I not lost weight coming up to the wedding, without even trying? Yes, it was all a bit much organising a wedding.

The day of my interview approached. I spent Sunday recovering from a hangover and two sleepless nights, and prepared for the interview all day Monday and Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning came and my period was still late. I figured it must be well over a week late. Now, I'd never been there before other than while training for a marathon, so really, I don't tend to miss periods. It dawned on me that I may, just may, be pregnant. There was an interview at 2pm. A job I really wanted, a rare opportunity which ticked all possible boxes. I'd just got married. My in laws were still about and I was keen to entertain them and show them some of the highlights of the area. Oh, and did I mention the interview I was trying to find time to prepare, in between all of that?
I knew I had to at least test. I also knew that just in case I was actually pregnant, there was no way I could test before the interview.

So this is what my schedule of that fateful Tuesday was (I actually planned this out exactly and stuck to it just so):
Prepare interview (all morning)
Get hubby (oh, he's my HUSBAND now) to get a pregnancy test in a German pharmacy. The thought of it still makes me giggle.
1 pm Have lunch
2 pm do interview by phone
3 pm have a half hour break to collect nerves strewn about after the most agonising interview ever (have you ever done a phone interview with a mobile phone line breaking up and being interviewed by 2 young people whose first language is not English if you yourself are not a native speaker of English? I really and truly had trouble understanding their questions)
3.30 pm pregnancy test
3.32 OMG there are two lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm pregnant.
I've just done a job interview.
I'm going on honeymoon tomorrow.
I've just got married.
I had a lot of booze at my wedding. As you would expect really.
I'm only a few weeks pregnant and have already damaged my baby. Howl.
Can someone stop this rollercoaster? Please?

I got the job. And I took it, because at the end of the day, I really and truly wanted it, as much as I wanted to have a child I felt awful and requested a chat where I admitted the state I was in. This is before I started the job or gave notice at my old work. I continued to feel awful throughout my pregnancy, never once complaining, not missing a single day, trying to schedule all antenatal appointments with least impact on my work. My new employer has been good to me, not a negative word about the rather awkward timing. This is of course how it should be, but still.

As to our honeymoon I had to admit that picking a destination where the roads were cut into high mountains and one continuous bend wasn't very clever for a first trimester mum to be. My overwhelming memory are endless car journeys on an all day sickness stomach. Fish with all the bits still on staring at me and seriously putting me off any food there was. Panic at every restaurant table if yet again the fare was unstomachable. It usually was - this place was steeped deeply in old fashioned bucolic food, untouched by tourism or the finer taste buds. My constant questions on the pasteurisation status of cheese answered invariably with a shoulder shrug, I came to believe that in this place, pasteurisation had not made its entry. Shame, because there was little other food that I could stomach. There was also little opportunity to find out what I was supposed not to eat, so I indulged in peanuts, prawns, raw egg and whatever else there is which should be avoided during pregnancy. Not that I ate much. Boy those fish eyes and the smell of seaweed, harbour and recently caught fish did not do me much good. Did I mention I missed a whale watching trip? A boat trip, when 8 weeks pregnant? No way Jose. I was so so sick. So so tired, I barely managed to get up for breakfast or lunch and could have spent my whole honeymoon in bed.

Just for all the wrong reasons.

photo credit: Luke and Courtney Barrett

weekend in pictures: Alva Parklands

Gusting Clackmannanshire winds, a mighty Fife seabreeze and glistening sunshine between threatening rain clouds. A weekend to explore and enjoy the sometimes wild beauty of Scotland.

A time to aim high with a helping hand, never losing sight of the desired place, to push the limits, venture further with every step, to explore old stones and towns:A time spent balance low and up high, testing heights and the safety of step:
Time to explore the flow of water and get wet
Time to throw sand with passion and delight:
Above all, to feel the wind in one's hair, to run, eat, drink, play, climb, sit and jump in the scenic shade of the Ochills and the salty air of the Firth of Forth, some last days of summer with the long Scottish summer nights noticeably drawing in.